“Nostalgic Object Cabin” carefully arranged by Liao Caiwei. Photo by Liu Juncong
Chinanews.com Liuzhou, July 9th title: Youths in small towns in Guangxi create “nostalgic object huts” to reproduce childhood memories and receive tens of thousands of likes
Author Liu Juncong
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On July 9, in a humble hardware store on the streets of Liucheng County, Liuzhou City, Guangxi, Liao Caiwei was sorting out the goods on the shelves. When he opened an ordinary room on the third floor of the hardware store, a new world appeared in front of him.
Under the retro dim light in the room, several old and polished old desks are full of toys from the 20th century, all of which are “post-70s” to Childhood memories of the “post-90s”. There are bamboo figures, wooden spinning tops, match guns that boys often play, and paper-cut paintings, paper wind chimes, and feather shuttlecocks that are familiar to girls.
Liao Caiwei is recording a video of needle threading barley kernel. Photo by Hou Yunying
This small “nostalgic object hut” was built by Liao Caiwei. Liao Caiwei, 36 years old this year, is an out-and-out “post-80s”. He grew up in the countryside and is familiar with these 20th century game objects. In the daily boring hardware store business life, occasionally playing these childhood games has become an excellent way for him to relieve stress.
One day in 2020, Liao Caiwei and his wife were playing the game of “throwing stones” at the door of their house, and took a video and posted it to the Internet. Unexpectedly, this short ten-second video immediately aroused a lot of resonance. Within a few days, the number of views of the video reached more than 20 million, and the number of likes reached more than 500,000. For ordinary Liao Caiwei, this was really startling.
“The number of followers has increased by tens of thousands. Later, I also tried to upload such videos, and the number of followers even increased by hundreds of thousands a day. Everyone commented and said with emotion, seeing your video seems to be back to back. To the carefree childhood in the past.” Liao Caiwei said.
Liao Caiwei is showing playing card toys. Photo by Hou Yunying
Since then, the idea of letting more people ride the “time machine” took root in Liao Caiwei’s heart. He decided to continuously collect toy objects of the 20th century, and shoot and edit them into videos and upload them to the Internet, so that more “post-70s” to “post-90s” can relive their memories.
“These objects have been collected for nearly a year, and they are all ‘turned’ from their own and friends’ homes, and some are also made by themselves. Many people don’t actually remember such a toy as a child, but when they see it The video, when I think of it in an instant, will make me feel very pleasantly surprised.” Liao Caiwei said.
During the conversation, Liao Caiwei poured sugar into the rubber-sized cover of “Fengyoujing” and then baked it on the candle. Under the high temperature, the sugar gradually melted, and he poured the melted syrup on the matchstick prepared in advance to cool, and the homemade “lollipop” was completed.
“These childhood memories will be presented in a short video, and then put on a retro tone filter, which can easily resonate with everyone.” He said.
Before these nostalgic videos attracted attention, Liao Caiwei knew nothing about video editing. Today, with the improvement of shooting technology, Liao Caiwei has learned to use scene layout and retro filters to process videos. In his spare time during the holidays, Liao Caiwei will go to various villages with his friends, direct and act in the impressive scenes of that era, and recreate the games he played at that time.
There are old objects from the last century on the table. Photo by Hou Yunying
At present, Liao Caiwei’s “Nostalgic Objects House” has collected more than 200 toy objects, and his video account has more than 1.5 million fans and more than 27 million likes. Liao Caiwei decided to keep operating this video account, and hoped to obtain certain substantial benefits through it.
“Nowadays, many of the post-70s, post-80s, and post-90s are already under the pressure of life. I hope that through these nostalgic videos, everyone will be able to Bring back the carefree era and relive the beauty of childhood.” Liao Caiwei said. (End)
（China News Network）